Thursday, April 10, 2008

Filet-o-Fish

Never buy a Filet-o-Fish. You can’t trust them. For not once in the history of McDonald’s has anyone ever ordered a Filet-o-Fish intentionally. Sure, people have gotten them by mistake sometimes. On occasion some generous cubicle drone makes a McDonald’s office run and buys everything on the menu to distribute to coworkers, and at the bottom of the bag will be the pathetic green wrapper containing the bun-and-tartar-sauce draped mystery of the oceansea.

And a mystery it should remain, because who really wants to know what deranged process it takes to turn one of Nemo’s associates into a flat, square shaped patty? It’s a true distortion of nature’s plan to create such a monstrosity, and while comparably disturbing ventures are taken to create such substances as McNugget and hamburger, those don’t seem as revolting because they are accepted blocks of the food pyramid. The Filet-o-Fish, though, is an anomaly, a crime against our underwater brothers akin to making Shamu bounce a ball on his nose.

I of course am not alone in this opinion, and that’s why the sandwich is never ordered. That’s why McDonald’s used to slap it with the stigma of the No. 9 combo, relegated to the end of the line, relegated to the outer reaches of the customer’s peripheral vision. Only later did they move it around, to Nos. 4 or 6, hoping to increase volume by tricking people into ordering the restaurant’s shame instead of their usual double quarter pounder. And while all this chicanery occurred, the poor tastilicious McRib had to sit on the sidelines, only able to pop out for a gleeful romp once every other year or so, soaking in its delectable sauces, waiting to pounce for brief glory, only to fade back into oblivion, while its incompetent rival, the Filet-o-Fish, was allowed to stay.

At this point I must admit that I’ve never tried one. The Filet-o-Fish, that is – not the McRib. The McRibs I’ve not only tried but inhaled, three to an order during those glorious jubilee periods in which they’re made available. And during off seasons, I sate my McRib fix by buying them on the black market. I’m reduced to shady back alley deals and occasional sexual debasement for the salve to my addiction. But that’s off the subject. I’m not able to comment on the taste of the Filet-o-Fish because of my inexperience in munching them, which I think is a testament to my wisdom and worldliness. Only a fool, after all, would order something no one else ever does. While trying anything else on the menu offers reasonable odds of getting a piece of reasonably freshly made cholesterol-dripping, preservative-wafting fulfillment, you just know the Filet-o-Fishes on the burger ready-rack have been there since the joint opened that day at 5:30 a.m., if not the day before, if not the week before. Never having been ordered, never to be ordered. The bastard sandwich is kept alive only by the moaning drone of the heat rack, as if it were some sort of edible version of Terry Schiavo, alive but somehow dead; staleness warmed into floppy submission.

If only it were possible to catch Filet-o-Fishes and release them back into the waters from whence they came, allowing them one last swim, as a watershed homage to the environment we debased in mankind’s blind urge to make gross burger alternatives. They could peacefully drift to the bottom of the ocean and stay there. During the long float to the bottom, they would drift undisturbed. Other, living creatures, some destined themselves to become a Filet-o-Fish, will swim by and look at the sandwich with their big round eyes, then lose interest and jet off to some other place to blow bubbles, hassle the plankton and try to look up jellyfishes skirts. They won’t even take a nibble, because even fish have standards when it comes to getting their grub on.